C. M. Black: Eyes of an Owl
Chapter XXXV: It all goes public
Harry stood beside Cassy's hospital bed as Madam Pomfrey frantically examined her. The others were there too, whole and safe. They had been taken back by members of the Order as the last of the Death Eaters had been rounded up and long before the Ministry had arrived. Absently, he stepped back to allow the matron the room to attend to Cassy. He said nothing as Hermione let out a relieved wail and Luna struggled to sit in the bed next to hers.
Sirius stood firmly at the end of the bed. Madam Pomfrey had emitted a slight gasp at the sight of him, but he did not transform or shy away from her to hide in case anyone entered at the incoming news of the missing students' returns. While his jaw was set, he looked much calmer than Harry felt.
For a moment during the battle, when Bellatrix had thrown open the door and Hermione had breathed in so sharply, Harry thought the world had ended. She had not even been speaking to him, but laughing at Hermione, jeering that her foolish friend had got what she deserved, yet the words sent his brain screeching to a halt so suddenly it left his head aching. The words seemed incomprehensible. The sentence did not make any sense, the words could not possibly fit together because he knew, he simply knew that it was a complete impossibility that Cassy could be dead. She could not have been gone. It was simply not possible.
Neville had been the first one to gather himself. With blood pouring from his face, his words stilted by his broken nose, he fired at Bellatrix. At least, Harry assumed it was words. He had not been listening in the slightest, but upon reflection, he supposed it might have just been a screech or a shout of despair. Whatever it had been, it only made Bellatrix laugh harder.
'She's dead. Gone. She thought she was so clever and she burnt for it!' she cackled.
Hermione had fired next. She had stood in front of Ginny and Ron protectively, both were unconscious. Luna had moved to stand unsteadily but with unyielding determination.
Harry only realised it as his eyes drifted between his friends sluggishly, that they stung. Hot tears flowed down his cheeks and it took him a moment to realise exactly why that was.
'She's dead!' repeated Bellatrix. 'Does that not bother you, Potter?'
The doors burst open and the Death Eater's scattered. Still, Harry did not react.
'Harry!' yelled Sirius. 'Are you okay?'
Harry turned his red-rimmed eyes to his Godfather.
'He's not the one you should be worried about,' said Bellatrix.
Sirius grinned and turned and for a moment, Harry felt the weight lift from his chest because how could Sirius possibly smile if Cassy was dead?
'You made a big mistake, Bellatrix,' he said with a wolfish grin. Effortlessly, a duel began between the two remaining Blacks.
Remus appeared at Luna's side, but she refused to be escorted from the centre of the room. She struggled against him, her breathing ragged and no one else even seemed to hear her struggles. Not even Neville was concerned enough to assure her it was fine to leave the battle. His hand shook so violently that Harry was surprised his wand was still gripped between his fingers. He only had eyes for Bellatrix, Bellatrix who had killed Cassy. It still seemed impossible. She was merely taunting them, surely, because there was simply no way they could all be standing there and she was the one that had fallen. Bellatrix was heartless and cruel; she was merely taking advantage of Cassy's absence to lower their defences, he assured himself. That was the only plausible explanation.
'I think you will find that the only mistake was made by your daughter when she tried to save her friends. You should have seen her, Cousin, she burnt. If you find her body, I don't imagine there will be much left to mourn,' said Bellatrix softly.
'What?' said Sirius blankly.
'You heard me, she burnt. She burnt alive when she challenged me. I must say, I was very upset not to hear her screams, but the room was caving in, you see, so if you are particularly lucky then she might even have been crushed first and saved the pain!' she continued merrily.
Sirius continued to stare.
'I killed Cassiopeia Black,' she announced, singing, with a grin so wide her sunken cheeks were forced to reveal her yellowed teeth.
The lights surrounding them and the cries of battles nearby were drowned out by nothing but a dull ringing. Harry's world seemed to tilt for a moment at the sound of Sirius' roar. His movements were frantic, determined, and deadly. Each swipe of his wand produced a new spell, no movement was wasted unlike before and he no longer smiled. He danced out of the way of attacks with an ease and grace that Cassy had always had too, a family trait perhaps, he idly noted. His spells connected with Bellatrix three times, each enticing a manic laugh from his lips, daring her to say another word about his child. The hysterical tinge to his words spoke only of desperation and the much-needed assurance that her truths were lies.
'He can't have taken her like he did James and Lily. He can't have, I don't accept it!' he yelled. Yet, tears blurred his eyes just like they did everyone else's.
The ringing increased as Harry was forced to look around again at his friends. Remus pulled on his arms, urging him from the room and to safety, wherever the other's had been whisked away to, though he could still see Neville fighting against Kingsley's grasp in the distance. Remus' face was crumpled; Tonks' hair was a meek brown and her shoulders jerked unnaturally as she forced herself to breathe through the tears that streaked her face. Suddenly, the impossible was not so defined. She was really gone.
Harry did not recall what had happened after that so easily. A loud noise erupted from somewhere, possibly himself, and it echoed dangerously through the amphitheatre. He ran for her and straight past Sirius. He reached out a moment too late to catch his sleeve. She ran, grinning and he knew it was a trap, that she was enjoying his rage and his sorrow, but he did not care. His mind was no longer able to deny that Cassy might be dead. All that left was anger and Bellatrix was going to pay for what she had done.
'Harry!' shouted Sirius and Remus. His name was echoed by the other members of the Order when they realised he was heading straight for the exit, but he had not slowed down or stopped. He continued to chase her, his wand drawn and he willingly followed her until she vanished behind a door. It slammed shut, but not before flashing a glint of gold of the elevator that lead to the exit. Of all the doors, only one did not change. Rock tumbled from where the entrance had once been, blocked, just like Bellatrix had said.
He had shouted at the room and demanded an exit. As soon as the walls stopped spinning he was greeted with the golden gate and Harry boarded it just as Sirius appeared in the hall. He only spared the briefest glance at him. It was too painful to even contemplate the look on his face. His daughter was dead. She was dead, dead, dead, and it was all Harry's fault for not thinking before he acted. He had gone to the Ministry to save one Black and had incidentally killed the other.
Bellatrix had been waiting for him in the atrium. He watched with satisfaction as she crumpled to the ground and writhed with pain beneath his spell. She laughed when it ended and stood as though the torture was nothing. It meant nothing, though, her satisfied smile, for the prophecy was gone and Voldemort would surely know that. He hoped he made her suffer for it because it was nothing less than she deserved. Then, he arrived and it was only a blissful few minutes later that the door was slammed open to reveal Cassy, bloodied, but still very much alive, though somewhat aggravated.
At the memory of the events, Harry could not help but choke back a sob. He had never truly considered that she might die. It seemed impossible that she would be anything less than fine that it had taken the description of her crisped corpse and her father's roar of denial to force the message through his skull.
To his side, Sirius had still not moved. A curtain was now around the bed, but Sirius continued to stare at it blankly until Harry spoke.
'I'm sorry,' he whispered.
Sirius slowly moved his eyes to Harry. 'Don't be. I would have done the same if I thought anyone was in danger.'
'If anything had happened –'
'I would not have been your fault. You could have ordered her to stay behind and she would have punched you and gone by herself,' he snorted. A slight smile tugged at his lips and Harry felt mildly relieved at the sight of the small expression.
'Is she…?' asked Neville gingerly. His round face was pink from an effort not to cry all over again. Yet, he did not hold back when Harry nodded and smiled.
'Alive? Yeah, she is,' he said.
Hermione, who had already been crying at the sight of her friend's uneven breaths before, began to openly sob.
'I'm going to kill her,' she choked out between uneven, harsh breaths. 'She's definitely dead.'
Madam Pomfrey hissed for them all to be quiet.
The bright light of the hospital wing was the first sight that greeted Cassy's blurry eyes. Her fingers itched for her wand, panic coursed through her when she could not feel it by her side, but she slumped down tiredly when she realised where she was. Sighing heavily, she pushed herself into a sitting position and ignored the ache of her left hand that no longer seemed to be broken. The cool air tingled the exposed skin on her arm and she peered down disdainfully at the white hospital gown someone had taken the liberty of changing her into sometime while she was unconscious.
Her eyes drifted to the beds surrounding her. The bed to her left was piled with straggly, blonde hair which poked out from beneath the thin sheets. The beds away from her were all empty and she worked her way around the room until she looked opposite. There was not a person on the bed, but there was a black mass at the end of hers that made her smile softly. Curled as small as possible, a giant dog lay at the foot of her bed. His chest puffed in and out as he lay deeply asleep.
Continuing her observations, she spotted Ron; his arms were bandaged heavily. Curiously, at the very end of the row in the bed closest to the door lay Professor Umbridge. Her eyes were open, yet she did not move or blink. She simply stared blankly up at the ceiling.
Cassy watched her curiously for some time before looking down at her own hands. The knuckles were still cut, although mostly healed, and the bruising was gone. With her unwrapped hand, she reached gingerly to feel her hairline. Fingering the edge of the bandages she found there too, she wondered what kind of injury it must have been not just to be healed in a night. She deliberated how long she had been there for. From the sleeping forms and the bright yellow light that flooded in through the arched windows, she knew it must be morning.
Her head ached slightly and her muscles were still sore, but she felt surprisingly well. A scratchy dryness had settled in her throat and she coughed, but it only made the itching worse and she smothered her mouth firmly to stop herself waking the others. At the far side, near Madam Pomfrey's office, was a water jug and with relief Cassy swung her legs over the edge of the bed.
The dog's head shot up. She paused and went to smile, but suddenly he leapt from the bed and transformed in mid-air back into a man. He landed almost silently and spun to face her. Dressed in the same blazer and shirt she had last seen him in, Sirius ran his eyes over her quickly as though checking for any signs of discomfort. He frowned.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
Cassy raised a finger to her lips and jerked her head towards Luna's sleeping form.
'Where are you going?' he whispered.
'Just to get a drink,' she croaked, fighting back the urge to cough again.
Sirius hurried to the sideboard and snatched the jug and goblet from the collection. He thrust the full goblet at her and resumed his seat at the end of her bed, watching attentively as she drank.
Awkwardly, Cassy thanked him. She wished he would stop watching her now. She was not about to die whilst in the hospital wing. They sat in silence for a time, the only sound was Ron's muffled snores. Sirius picked at lint on his black slacks idly and pulled off several strands of what looked like his own dog hair.
'You have been in and out of consciousness for the last day now. Madam Pomfrey suggested you stay in forced unconsciousness because of the extensive muscle damage she found. It's a lot harder to heal than bones. Apparently, you are very lucky to be alive, if not at least deaf from an explosion like that,' he stated.
'I know some rather powerful shield spells,' said Cassy with a small smile.
He smiled back, although it did not look particularly happy and said, 'I'm glad. I dread to think what might have happened otherwise.'
Buried or cremated, pondered Cassy inappropriately. She had never really thought about it.
'What happened in there?' Sirius suddenly asked. 'Hermione said you went to face Bellatrix alone.'
'How is everyone, actually?' questioned Cassy abruptly.
'Cassy,' said Sirius, warningly.
'How is everyone?' she repeated imploringly.
'Everyone is fine. Ron will most likely have scars on his arms for the rest of his life from the brains – ' Cassy's eyes widened in alarm, 'but his mind is fine, at least. Luna had some breathing difficulties because one of her lungs had collapsed and she had some internal bleeding. Harry is fine and so is Neville, although his nose was broken. Ginny was concussed, but she was let out yesterday. Hermione was fine beyond a snapped ankle.'
Cassy breathed out. If they had not had Dumbledore's Army then they certainly all would be dead.
'Now, tell me what happened,' said Sirius sternly.
She ran a hand through her loose hair and began her story. She went over how Luna had been hurt and how eventually both she and Hermione had been disarmed and with nothing left to do, she drew Bellatrix away from them. She explained the Fiendfyre and how she had enraged Bellatrix with her attack and how in doing so the serpent rose and grew, tightening itself around the Sun as the room burnt around them. Sirius grunted at the image she had conjured, but hissed as she described the inevitable explosion that burst the door off its hinges and sent her tumbling down the stairs with force. He watched her face closely when she began to describe her eventual escape to the Atrium.
Purposefully, she did not mention Voldemort's offer.
When she had finished speaking, Sirius nodded slowly to himself. He said, 'I really want to reprimand you, but I know I would have done the same. You and Harry were very brave, but I don't want either of you to ever risk your lives me for again.'
Cassy scowled. 'No.'
'I mean it,' he said.
'Then you cannot risk your life for us. It is either mutual or not done at all,' she snapped.
'It doesn't work like that,' he growled, but Cassy shook her head adamantly.
'It should. You cannot just expect us to do nothing if you need help. I am seventeen this year and I am joining this war and I am helping anyone I wish to, older than me or not. Have you told Harry he cannot help you? I bet he took that well,' she said forcefully.
Sirius rubbed his eyes and sighed, 'He has his mother's temper. Besides, for another year you are my responsibility and I do not want you running off to save me if I appear to be in danger, okay?'
'For another five months maximum,' said Cassy, her eyes half-lidded. 'My guardian is legally Tonks anyway.'
'Maybe for not much longer,' he said as a slow grin began to spread across his tired face. 'The Ministry has granted me a full trial, it's a formality really though. There is no way they cannot give me a full pardon. Within a month, I will be a free man.'
Cassy beamed. Her father's eyes were bright and distant with far-away thoughts.
'What do you plan to do afterwards then?' she asked.
'I don't know,' he shrugged. 'It might be nice to be able to walk down the street again. I even might ask Hagrid for my motorbike back.'
They were simple things, but things she supposed he had not been able to able to enjoy for the last fourteen years. There was nothing quite like being able to take a stroll at one's leisure, visit a restaurant, or leave to see friends without having to worry over who was there and how long you had until someone might see you. In the grand scheme of things, not much would change really. It was not as though he could stride so freely through the streets without a care, there were still Death Eaters afoot and the war was just beginning, but perhaps he would at least roam from home and with that Cassy hoped she too could find herself outside more than in last summer.
'I know about you and Harry, by the way,' he said suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence.
Cassy stiffened slightly, yet refused to allow her face to show any emotion before she knew exactly what he spoke of.
'I thought something might have been up, but I could not quite tell. Moony assured me you were just friends. Then when I was talking to Harry in the corridor yesterday after dinner, I was a dog, mind you, so he was talking to me, when Fred and George were just leaving after visiting Ron and shouted that Harry should go and visit his girlfriend in the hospital wing. When I looked round to him, he was gone. He had taken off running.'
Cassy sighed, 'They did that on purpose.'
Sirius smirked and shook his head. 'I don't mind, you know. You could have told me.'
'Would you have told your father?' she asked with narrowed eyes.
'James and I used to joke about being in-laws one day when you two were little, but that's a long way off – it better be, at least,' he said and suddenly frowned.
Cassy huffed an awkward laugh, but her smile was genuine. Sirius' hand was clasped on her shoulder and he shook it slightly with a small smile of his own. He looked her straight in the eye and said, 'I'm glad you are all right. I thought… I thought…' His grip tightened.
'It's okay,' mumbled Cassy. 'I'm sorry.'
The mere weakness in his voice was enough to make an allowance when she pulled her into a fierce hug. She did not fight it for once, but wrapped her arms around him too and ignored the cry of her strained muscles.
Cassy spent most of the morning in deep conversation with Luna and Ron. Sirius had soon departed to inform Professor Dumbledore of Cassy's missing part of the events and had not returned after breakfast. She told Luna and Ron what had happened once they had become separated and in turn they both recounted their own experiences. Ron had been with Ginny when they were chased into the space room, a severing charm hit his side through the bookcase, pooling the blood Cassy had slipped in later, and another curse had connected with his head, making him addled and delirious. He was not sure what had happened following that. Ginny had hit her head when they stumbled from the room, but he had been told they had met Harry and Neville in the corridor.
'They help us into the brain room,' he said as he picked at a chocolate frog his parents had left him. 'Neville said I was completely out of it and I thought it would be funny to summon one of the brains, mental, I know, but I did.' He then held out his arms and turned them to reveal the full extent of the lacerations the chords on the brains had left on his skin. 'After the brains started attacking us, we moved rooms and ended up in the one with the arch.'
'Which is where they found Hermione and me,' added Luna. She sat on the end of Cassy's bed, her legs swinging contentedly. 'Hermione managed to wake me up and we were about to leave to go and look for you when the door burst open. We were in there for a while before the Death Eaters found us again. We were just making a plan to find you. It seems with all of the crossings over in the corridors that we all just managed to miss each other. It couldn't have been long between Ginny and Ron leaving the space room and then them leaving the brain room. Neville and I were going to look after Ron while Ginny, Harry, and Hermione went to try and find you.'
'That's when the Death Eaters found us first,' interjected Ron quickly. His voice was spirited and alive, as though telling a grand tale of adventure to a crowd of children.
'The prophesy broke,' said Luna bluntly. 'It slipped from Neville's grip as he raced to protect me from Dolohov.'
Cassy's eyes lit up at the faint pink in Luna's cheeks and had Ron not been there she would certainly have commented, as it was, she asked, 'Then what?'
'Then Bellatrix arrived and said you were dead,' finished Luna conversationally.
'According to Ginny, the Order arrived after that, though she doesn't know too much and neither did Hermione. They were both taken away pretty quickly too. I asked Harry and Neville, but neither of them really wanted to talk about it,' said Ron with a heavy sigh.
Luna hummed. 'I think Neville was quiet more out of respect for Harry and Sirius. They were both very upset when you were brought in.'
Time passed on and although Madam Pomfrey had scolded Luna twice in ten minutes for being out of bed, the three remained in a stubborn close conversation. Their topic shifted and Ron had gone through the things his family had brought him when they had visited yesterday, which included several boxes of sweets and a homemade blanket by his mother, although he was not sure what she expected him to do with it seeing as it was June.
Luna said her father had been there to visit too and had told her all about his new theory on the Crumble-horn Snorkacks. Ron had stared at her with a sort of wary alarm before he shook his head in despair. He turned to Cassy.
'You should ask her about it. She's told me three times already. I think I'm an expert,' he said teasingly.
'I could tell by your vacant expression you listened to about forty-percent of my story,' retorted Luna, 'but that's okay. It can be difficult for some people to understand.'
Cassy had to force herself not to snort into her pumpkin juice at the horror on Ron's face.
'I could understand it if I wanted to!'
Laughing as Luna smiled kindly, if not patronisingly at him, Cassy turned to the opening door. She expected to see the tall form of her father returning, but instead she saw a shorter, blond teen shuffle through. He shut the door behind him and it was only when he turned around again that he seemed to take note of the situation before him.
'Cassy!' cried Neville. He ran towards her and skidded painfully into the metal bedstead. He winced, but quickly held out his arms for a hug before flapping momentarily and forcing them down again. 'Does it still hurt?'
'A bit,' admitted Cassy.
'On a scale of one to ten?'
'Three?' she guessed, raising an eyebrow.
'Good,' he said and before Cassy could do anything to prevent it he threw his arms around her in a firm hold. He released her just as quickly, well aware it would take only a few more moments for her to begin to squirm and complain.
She mock-glared at him, but he did not seem to notice.
'I was beside myself when Bellatrix said she had…' he admitted. His eyes began to glisten with rapidly rising tears.
Alarmed, Cassy could only think to smirk. She said, 'So people keep saying. I was not aware I was so popular.'
He rolled his eyes and wedged himself on the bed beside Luna.
'You should have seen Sirius,' he said. 'He had been treating it all like a bit of a joke at first, like the duelling was fun, but then Bellatrix said what she had done and everything changed. He just halted for a moment and his entire being just changed. It was really terrifying. I'm glad I wasn't her because that look was enough to make me shudder, let alone the kinds of spells he threw out there. He had her on the ropes until she fled.'
'She retreated?' asked Cassy, surprised.
'Yeah. I think she thought what she said would ruin his spirit, but it only made him fight harder, so it backfired a bit. Anyway, then Harry raced after her and Sirius ran after him while we all remained in the amphitheatre. Dumbledore arrived a bit later and he went after then when Remus explained,' he explained.
Cassy nodded slowly. A not-so-quiet part of her brain revelled in the fact that her father had been a match for Bellatrix, but another part of it assessed it was not only the duel that had her fleeing. She needed to get Harry alone to Voldemort and baiting him was the easiest way to do it. The Dark Lord was unlikely to burst into the hall with Professor Dumbledore on his way, he did, after all, fear him above any other.
It was not long after that that Hermione and Ginny crept into the hospital wing. Much like Neville had, Hermione raced to Cassy and encircled her in a bone-crushing hug.
'You're so stupid!' she scolded while clinging on firmly. 'Why was I cursed with a best-friend like you? You scared me half to death when you ran from the room – Cassiopeia Black, will you hug be properly for once!'
Cassy paused her patronising patting and smiled sheepishly as she humoured Hermione for a second with a hug before detaching her.
'Your life would be dull without me, though,' teased Cassy and Hermione sniffed and whipped her eyes.
'That's true, but you are stupid, though,' called a voice.
Instantly, Cassy turned and beamed at the sight of Harry approaching. His hair was as ruffled as ever, his glasses had been fixed once again, and the long, thin cut that had marred his right cheekbone had begun to heal. She hopped down from the bed. He caught her as she approached and swooped down for a long, slow kiss that had Ron groaning and Ginny retching in loud imitations of puking. Harry flipped his fingers up at them. Everyone laughed and for a moment, it was as though nothing had happened.
They spoke for hours until Madam Pomfrey evicted them close to dinner time. Luna was allowed to leave that night and Sirius returned to announce his departure from the castle. Stephen and Astoria visited the next day and nosed through the various well-wishing cards that sat on her bedside table. She saw nothing of Tonks, but soon found she had been injured in the battle and was in St. Mungo's. She was fine but had muscle damage to her left leg and had to remain stationary for the next month. Cassy had laughed loudly at the news and written her cousin a very cheeky letter that teased her thoroughly for it; Tonks would never manage it.
Cassy was discharged two days later and left Ron alone and under observation, although his parents visited every day.
The Daily Prophet brought the interview Harry had given to The Quibbler months ago and ran it constantly and Harry had even received a personal apology from Fudge. He had just scoffed as he told them about it, fully aware he was now back in everyone's favour as the lone voice of reason through the beginning of the war. True enough, everyone had begun to watch him closer than ever. A glimmer ran through many of their eyes as though they were each waiting for something miraculous to happen whenever Harry walked by. Hermione and Ron had taken it upon themselves as Prefects to move people along, but mealtimes were still full of gawping faces and whispered questions.
Harry did not seem to notice many of them at all. Though he smiled and joked publically more easily than he had in a long time, it was the faces he pulled in private that bothered Cassy. When the attention dwindled, his eyes would dim and he would be overcome by a horrible sadness that would last only a second, before he would re-energise once more. It was that which provoked Cassy into asking him to walk with her one sunny afternoon in late June, alone and far away from the prying eyes of the school.
The pendulum of the giant clock face swung, distorting the scatter rays of sunlight that stretched across the grey floor. It was silent in the tower for the screaming and laughing voices of the many students enjoying the good weather were too far below to penetrate the glass and stone. The hands moved slowly as the minutes past and for a while Cassy and Harry simply watched the busy people below as they sat and talked, shrieked and ran in blissful ignorance.
'When are you going to stop blaming yourself?' she asked conversationally.
Harry's shoulders slumped.
'You did not force us to accompany you, you remember. In fact, I recall on several occasions you asking us to remain back,' she continued.
'You all knew it was a bad idea though and I insisted anyway,' he muttered.
Cassy cast him a disapproving sidelong stare and said, 'And we had no proof that you were not right, so we went. Imagine how we all would have felt if your vision had been real. We knew the risks. No amount of self-blame will change what happened. Consider instead that we are all alive and there is no permanent damage done. We will be better next time.'
'There won't be a "next time",' he argued, scowling.
'There will,' said Cassy simply. She sat on the warmed stone in front of the clock and stretched her long legs out. 'We are with you now and until the end.'
Harry did not seem to particularly like the implications of that, but it pacified him enough for him to sit opposite her in the sunlight.
'I just wish I knew what the prophecy said,' she muttered.
There was no response. She slowly slid her eyes to her boyfriend and stared unblinkingly until he stopped chewing on his lip thoughtfully.
'Go on then,' she commanded.
He slowly and thoughtfully recalled:
'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ...'
When he finished Cassy said nothing. She replayed the information over and over in her head until she had absorbed every line.
'That's what Dumbledore told me it said. Trelawney actually made a prediction for once,' said Harry bitterly.
Cassy raised an eyebrow high onto her forehead. Trelawney was actually capable of prophesying events; the idea that Trelawney was capable of even cutting her food without firing a piece of it across the Great Hall was news, let alone being a genuine Seer.
'I know,' he lamented at her expression. 'Apparently, Voldemort was only told the beginning, so he had no way of knowing that would happen if he attacked me as a baby.'
'Has the Headmaster always known?' she asked.
Harry nodded, 'He said he thought I was too young to handle the pressure of it at first. Then when he released I was old enough, he said he cared too much about me to want to put that kind of burden on me. He said it was his greatest flaw, caring for me. I understand, but he should have said. Everything would have made so much more sense. The connection Voldemort and I share, his obsession with killing me – it all makes sense.'
Cassy flicked a Galleon between her fingers that she had fished out from the pocket of her summer dress. A child born at the end of the seventh month meant more than Harry. There were not many magical children born in Britain each year, but she knew two with birthdays a day apart at the end of the seventh month. The image conjured by Neville being marked as the one prophesied was horrifying at best. She knew he would rise to the challenge of it. The progress he had achieved so quickly following the news of Bellatrix's escape was unimaginable, so to have them murdered would only have provoked him earlier on to try harder than he believed he was capable of. She wondered if they would still be friends and if James and Lily Potter would be alive and unharmed. She might have grown up alongside Harry, but then the unfavourable idea they might have been more like siblings occurred and she pushed the entire thought train away.
'So you and you alone have the power to kill the Dark Lord,' she stated.
He nodded and she sighed.
'I assumed there was a vendetta he had against you, but I knew something was not right when he asked your mother to stand aside so he could kill you alone,' she admitted with resignation.
Harry's head jerked up. 'What do you mean?'
Cassy blinked and said, 'Do you not find it odd that he offered a Muggleborn to stand aside so he could kill a baby? Surely he would just kill her and leave you if you were anything less. Although, it still does not answer why he offered to let her live… it's been bothering me for a while now, to be honest.'
'I never thought about it,' said Harry slowly, 'but you're right. From what I know he would have just killed her.'
For several long moments, he contemplated the curious event. Cassy let him draw the same conclusions and open-ended questions she had wondered for the last six months without a word. She could see the thoughts swirling in his eyes and she turned to the window and watched in contentment as a flock of sparrows fluttered by. Eventually, she turned back to him to find him with a distant gaze as he stared out the very same window.
'We will always be by your side, you know that,' she said softly.
'You shouldn't have to be,' he returned. 'I can't expect anyone to join in this war for me and I don't want any of you hurt again.'
Cassy narrowed her eyes. 'Do not baby me, Harry. I am capable of fighting and I will do so as I wish. This war already involves my friends and family, not to mention my morals would not rest with Muggles being slaughtered. I will fight and I will probably be hurt again, but do not ever try and hold me back.'
'I wouldn't dream of it,' he protested quickly.
'Good, because if you wanted a passive girlfriend you really should have asked out Cho Chang,' she jeered, but it only made him smile.
'I know and I wouldn't expect anything less of you,' he promised. 'I just don't like the idea of anyone dying for me.'
'Oh, stop being conceited, Potter, the wars not all about you. It's not like you are the Chosen One or anything,' she teased.
Harry grunted in disgust at the title and she shuffled toward him. Their knees knocked together and she stared up at him with bright, amused eyes.
'You truly are stupid,' she muttered.
'Then we're well matched,' he countered before he leant in for a kiss. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead on hers.
'What did my father have to say about that, I wonder?' she snickered.
Harry shrugged sheepishly. 'I ran before he had a chance. The next time I saw him he just laughed at me.'
Cassy chortled.
'I really don't want to return to the Dursley's. I'm not sure I can cope,' he admitted.
Cassy hummed, 'I will work on having you out of there before your birthday, but failing that I will just get Plum to apparate you away.'
'I was watched all summer last year. What makes you think I won't be this year?'
'If you are gone you are gone. I don't care much for that and there is not much they can do about it,' she said simply and it was Harry's turn to laugh.
I was going to wait until next week to publish this, but I've had a bit of a terrible week and it's only Wednesday, so I thought some editing might cheer me up, particularly this chapter because it means fifth year is complete!
Next year will be C. M. Black: Tears of a Phoenix. I will probably put up the first two chapters of that on Saturday.
I hope you enjoyed the story and I will see you for the year.
Thanks!